With Jack and Lyn in Acapulco

 Borealis Sunday 23rd April 2023

At 7 in the morning we sweep past the hilly north headland into Acapulco Bay. We are faced with an array of wide buildings, large and small, clinging to the cliffs and the more distant hills beyond. These in turn appear to be the foothills to even more distant mountains, the Sierra Madre del Sur. It is a somewhat misty start to what purports to be a sunny day, with a noon temperature of 32 degrees or more. That is the warmest we've had since Singapore. We can also see the nearby fortress museum just above the cargo terminal. Very imposing and in the form of a five pointed star. It was the bastion defending the eastern end of the profitable and dangerous Manila run, which pumped riches and sliver into Spain and its possessions, thus eventually bankrupting its own industry and agriculture. The whole scene looks very welcoming, as we slowly slowly move in to dock at 7.15, nearly an hour earlier than scheduled.

Immigration was no big deal in Acapulco. We just needed a photocopy of our passport, which nobody looked at. A Mexican brass band was playing us in, as well as a tiger like figure confronting a man with a whip, and two couples in traditional local costumes. As Albina and I stepped ashore, we were accosted by a local TV station asking about our trip and whether we were looking forward to visiting Acapulco. Of course I obliged, describing the tour we had amde and what was yet to come. Apparently not that many cruise boats arrive here these days and Acapulco still rests on its past glories as a centre for glamour and fun. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lyn and Jack coming up, just as I finished my interview, and we all four hugged each other like long-lost friends, which is what we were.

Our emotional reunion was being interrupted now and again by touts offering us their services as guides and taxi drivers. Initial greetings over, the next question is what did we want to do. We most wanted to talk and reminisce and simply share each other’s company. As Jack and Lyn both speak fluent Spanish, I left all these tricky conversation to them. We mentioned the town centre (zocalo) and the fortress which appeared so near. We decided on the latter taking in the local history and deciding to have a breakfast nearby as Jack had not yet eaten. One guy in a supposedly official municipal blue uniform had outlasted the others in drawing our attention. He led us to a pedestrian bridge over the main coastline road towards the imposing walls of the XVIth century fortress. As it was Sunday, entry was supposed to be free and the building was due to be open at 9. We were 20 minutes early and when we came to the end of the bridge the gates were still locked. A bored local official happened to see us and unlocked the gates at our guide’s request. We sat amidst the trees with mangoes dropping down like rain around us as we waited and chatted.

At 9 our guide led us to the entrance where we told the building had been closed due to renovation. Did he not know that? I wondered too whether our destination staff on the ship had know that. Visiting the fortress was one of the key elements in at least three of their tours. We managed to wangle permission to take a picture inside the central courtyard of the fortress standing next to a cannon and then moved on. To where? Our indecision led us past the similarly closed Naval Museum towards a seedy side street which eventually led to a market square with some shops and cafes. We entered a shop looking for something Mexican for a Mexican evening on the ship, but nothing immediately came to mind. We opted finally to get out of there and have a breakfast stop in or near their hotel, particularly as we were carting around a bag with some presents for them. The important thing was to catch a municipal blue and white cab and not one of the rogue taxis who could drive you who knows where and were probably not adequately insured. The first municipal cab that turned up was actually being used by Helen and Tony, guided here by their cab driver guide to do a little shopping. We introduced our friends to them. Of course, they were retaining their cab, but within a few minutes we caught another and went to Jack’s hotel, the Ramada, which was on the seafront. On the way there, Jack stopped the taxi to buy a bottle of Mescal Joven for us as a going away present.

From the outside their hotel looked like an empty department store. So much so, that just then more acquaintances passed from the ship and asked what this empty building was that I was walking into. Inside the lobby was very basic with no amenities immediately visible except for the reception desk. However, a lift soon whisked us upstairs to the 19^th floor. Even from their corridor. there was a spectacular view of the city against its mountainous background. However, inside their spacious room the view of the harbour from the balcony was even more spectacular. I could see Borealis from there as well the whole sweep of the bay, a truly majestic view that had made this such a useful naturally protected harbour for the galleon fleets on the Manila run. Lyn told us that earlier in the morning Jack had emerged from the shower to observe Borealis coming into port and had had no chance yet to dress. As I too had emerged naked from my shower onto our cabin balcony earlier to take pictures of the headland and the bay, as we sailed in. It must have been at the same time as Jack’s equally revealing emergence on his balcony. We always knew how to communicate, even by telepathy. After all, we had been friends since we were 7 years old.

We refreshed ourselves with some drinks and, in my case, another shower, after the dusty hot introduction to Acapulco and we could at last hand over the presents. We caught another cab to take us to nearby La Quebrada to watch the local display of professional divers jumping from on high onto a small inlets some 40 metres below. They perform daily shows for the public and the next one was to take place at 10.15. We were ensconced in a restaurant well placed above the cliffs enjoying a mixture of various Mexican dishes. As we waited for the diving who should turn up at the same restaurant alongside us but Tony and Helen still with their guide. So, who’s stalking who? asked Helen. Still they took a picture of us sitting together, the first occasion we had for a picture of the four of us together. The dives were spectacular with younger boys and girls attempting jumps from lower heights at say 15 to 20 metres on an opposite cliff. It was important apparently to time their jumps with an incoming wave to ensure enough depth in the water to receive them without their hitting the bottom. As this was a professional operation, they obviously need to train a new generation to ensure the business continuity after the older divers retire or depart for other less pleasant reasons. The senior divers actually have to clamber to the top of their cliffs from below. There seems to be no easy access to the jumping off points from above and this extra hazard ensures a sustained expectant addition to the spectacle as they slowly make their way up. In the meantime, boats with spectators pass by, either private yachts or especially hired tour boats, including no doubt one hired by the destination staff of the Borealis.

There were about six divers, all male, with four jumping from a somewhat lower ledge and the most senior ones going from the top. As each one prepared to dive he would lift up his hands to show his readiness to jump. It is like the old gladiators in Rome, signalling to the emperor and the crowds the famous cry “Those who are about to die, salute you”. Then they adopt a swallow position and jump. Certainly, it was spectacular as they drop like dive bombing sea birds into the sea below. I wondered how long the body and the head can take such an impact perhaps several times a day over God knows how many years? We could also see some of the divers, perhaps the more junior ones, swimming out to sea towards the tourist boat. For tips? I can only guess. But why not.

We returned to our cab driver, Raoul, who spoke quite a reasonable English, and who drove us to the central square, the zocalo, in front of the cathedral. The impact of the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (Our Lady of Solitude) is astonishing. From the outside it resembles what I would call a pastiche of a Mexican church that might appear on a film set or an international exhibition. From the front it presents a barrel shaped edifice painted brilliant white with the three small roundelwindows, from which decorated pennants give the appearance of tears. The middle window also emits a golden sunrise. The front edifice is surrounded by two square white towers topped with two decorated blue coloured compartments that could pass as early cosmic satellites in a fairground attraction.  Behind the façade is a round building covered with a single bright blue dome. Apparently, it was built in the early thirties, and it certainly has the feel of a mixture Spanish and indigenous Indian styles, but it is still the main place of Catholic worship in Acapulco. The proof of that lay in the full capacity of the church being filled by its congregation attending a Sunday mass. We had a look around the square which included some fountains and kiosks, and spectacular ceiba trees with their protruding knarled roots and thick heavy branches. We shopped for some clothes and shoes and then quickly entered the Cathedral after the mass had finished. The interior walls and the domed ceiling were decorated with mostly blue glazed tiles and the floor was covered with golden mosaics. There were a number of depictions of a crucified Jesus with matted black hair on three of the walls and another figure, also presumably Jesus, lying shrouded in a glass case.  I have to say I liked this cathedral. It is not a huge church, but the unique design and the blue and gold colour on the walls and under the dome  makes it different from any other church I have ever visited.

One of the ceiba trees had photographs hanging from the branches like forbidden fruit. They depicted the 43 students supposedly murdered in a mass kidnapping by a rogue police raid on their bus in 2014 in the local province of Guerrero. Latest evidence suggests they were actually handed over to a local drugs gang for execution following their attempt to commemorate the massacre of students in Mexico City in 1968. The reach of the drug gangs is massive in Mexico, and they monopolize and fight each other not only over drugs but nearly every other form of profitable trade, such as restaurants, hotels or even the sale of avocados to the United States. As I mentioned in my earlier lecture on the boat, some 120,000 Mexicans had been killed since 2007 as a result of this vicious war between the state and the cartels and between the gang cartels. These have become more and more violent as the gangs fragment. The power of many of these gangs reaches far abroad as well as over Mexican local and national authorities, particularly in Northern Mexico. Before 2000 the Mexican government seemed to actually share power with them. The worst violence began after the governments of Fox, Calderon and their successors declared war on them, arrested many of their leaders and this led to the increasing fragmentation. That is also why you see soldiers parading up and down the main streets on the Acapulco seafront, on foot or in jeeps nestling a manned machine gun.

Raoul suggested we go to spend the afternoon in a hotel called Los Flamencos in the prosperous Las Playas district, sitting on top of that headland peninsula that we first passed before sailing into Acapulco Bay. The road to the hotel was typically third world, winding narrow streets, hilly and with a potholed road surface ready to declare war on any car suspension that ventures that way. Obviously, Raoul was used to this as we rattled our way up in his taxi ensuring that we felt every bump on the way. The hotel, painted in the most resplendent pink, was perched on a high cliff above the ocean with an open air but sheltered restaurant where we sat down to continue our reminiscences of friends and activities over the last more than half century. We were sitting on the same terrace and the same tables with pink tablecloths, where John Wayne and Johnny Weismuller of Tarzan fame, and other Hollywood stars sat and drank and partied in the 1930s and 1940s . They, like us, sat overlooking this wonderful panoramic view of the Pacific and the brightly painted houses perched on the neighbouring cliffs. This was the faded charm of old Mexico, which we paid homage to by sharing a bottle of the best locally made Mescal. I can't quite remember how many glasses we drank.

Maybe that is why my memory of our later visit to Acapulco remains so shrouded and dismembered as I dozed off occasionally, glass still in hand, in this delicious 36 degree afternoon heat, talking with our best friends in the world about family, friends and the world in general. Finally, Raoul in his battered taxi brought us back down to reality at the immigration terminal alongside Borealis, still well in time before its departure. I had squeezed a last goodbye with Jack and Lyn as we had quickly stopped at their hotel entrance when we realised that we had left the previous Mescal there along with some mangoes from the orchard outside the closed fortress.

We got back on the ship, and I fell on the bed and fell asleep immediately. I did not even wake up when the ship slipped away from its moorings an hour later, but Albina was there on the balcony waving to the departing city and to our absent friends on the balcony of the Ramada Hotel. Who knows when the fates will allow us to meet again.

I managed to wake up in time for dinner, although Albina remained sleeping in bed. I ran again into Tony and Helen. She was somewhat distraught as she had misplaced her purse with her credit cards. Sure enough they had had a good trip as well with their guide, although they had returned much earlier than we did. They too had been gazing at the ocean from the cliff top terrace at the Hotel Los Flamencos. According to their guide a number of U.S. film stars, including Steve McQueen, once had villas in that area,. Acapulco has the beauty and charm of an ageing actress, no longer quite capable of disguising her wrinkles, but still ready to make an impression when the occasion demands it.

Too damn tired (and still a bit too sozzled) to face a quiz game tonight.